Uncle Charlie sat at the head of the table and continued where he left off. “When the silos were active before, Maisie would leave baskets of homemade goodies at the gates for shift changes. They couldn’t ever really talk to us, but we figured it might be to our advantage to be friendly.”
Torchy licked his lips. “Lucky soldiers. I could really go for some of Aunt Maisie’s peach cobbler.”
“Well, you’re just in luck, Mr. Gravenor.” Aunt Maisie’s voice, as solid as a battle ax and quick as a whip, interjected. “Sheridan, just this morning, pulled out a couple jars of canned peaches to make a cobbler for dinner tonight. I’m sharing my secret recipe with her.”
Briggs looked up from a recipe book with interest. “Oui? What’s dzis about secret recipes? Is it published?”
“Well, then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, now would it, Mr. Briggs?” Aunt Maisie turned her head as though she were holding an award-winning coveted state fair recipe book.
“Perhaps we should consider writing a recipe book together. Secret Down Home Recipes from the Flying F Ranch.” Briggs gestured in a circle with his hand. “I believe it has a certain je nais se qua, oui? Don’t you think?”
Uncle Charlie laughed from deep within his belly. “Now this ought to be interesting. Three cooks in the kitchen trying to write a book?”
Mason Jones, the Flying F Ranch foreman, piped in, “Yeah, but think about it this way. They’ll have to test out all the recipes on us first.” Mason gave the okay, thumbs-up of approval.
Mason had been at the Flying F for as long as I could remember. A few years older than me, he made it his business to be an expert hunter, tracker, and Mr. Know-It-All. Cute guy, with his short-cropped blond mop he hid under his cowboy hat, but he was also was the kind of guy who always had to have the bigger, better, crazier story than you. Never to be outdone, if a guest at the ranch landed a pheasant during bird season, Mason would show up with three. He meant well, but I think his insecurity always meant he had something to prove, or even more so, something to hide. Not sure if anyone ever challenged Mason’s catty behavior, but he seemed to be the kind of guy who needed to be taken down a few notches, just for his own good. But on the other hand, if you got lost in the woods or needed to know how to survive in the wilds, he was your man—hands down.
Uncle Charlie had a boisterous laugh that sucked you in and made you feel as comfortable as a downy quilt in front of a fire. He stood about six foot tall, and his signature Bailey brown cowboy hat gave him the appearance of being even taller. He was the real deal. If ever there was a cowboy, he was one of them. He did it all. He was known all over the state for his horsemanship, blacksmithing, and smoking cured meats.
“Can we turn on the stereo, Aunt Maisie?” Sheridan asked as she accepted a stack of bowls to set the table.
“Sure, child. Might be time for the Huckabee Report,” she replied.
“I was hoping for a little music this afternoon to keep up the lightened mood.” Sheridan countered with a sweet smile. “Let me check what’s on the satellite music channels.”
Aunt Maisie couldn’t have been five feet tall in high heels. Her bright white hair hung in a long braid down her back. Rarely seen without an apron, Aunt Maisie always looked as though she got stuck in the 1940s and never moved past that era. Uncle Charlie towered over her, but they were the cutest couple and loved one another like newlyweds.
There was always a mountain of work to do around the ranch. Aunt Maisie managed the main house and guest houses, but she didn’t do it alone. She had a couple of local women help her after boarders left, but when it came to gardening, harvesting, canning, planning meals, cooking and cleaning, she had it down to a science and ran the schedule like clockwork.
Abbey MacCarthy, our cousin, had returned from walking the dogs and plopped on the bar stool at the end of the granite counter. She smiled at Mason. “I don’t think I’m gonna take the dogs into town anymore. Everyone looks at me like I was one of those New Yorkers walking twenty dogs.” Beano, my Boxer and Stormaggedon, Sheridan’s Pomsky led the pack. Torchy’s Labs, Ash and Soot, ran after them along with two Australian Shepherds, a Border Collie, and a Malamute Husky. They ran through the house as though it were their own private playground.
I loved our cousin Abbey. She was one of those women who possessed natural beauty and never even knew it. Her sunkissed skin complemented her straight brunette hair, which she usually wore in a ponytail high up on her head. Abbey always managed to look fresh as roses even when she’d been helping to pull a new born calf from a first-year heifer and was covered in afterbirth.
Rajah, my aunt’s Siamese cat, jumped onto the counter as the dogs barreled through the room. His tail puffed out as wide as his body. I stroked him and pulled him closer to me, trying to hush his Siamese yammering at the dogs. Boots, the long-haired tuxedo black and white kitty, ran for a bedroom and was most likely to hide under a bed for a couple days.
The house was alive with energy, dogs, cats, good conversations, laughter, and the delicious aromas of comfort food. It was a soothing feeling of respite and shelter. It had been a long time coming, but I could finally breathe again.
“Okay, soup’s on. Let’s eat.” Aunt Maisie called everyone to the table, and no one wasted a minute finding their seats.
Chapter Eighteen
Flying F Ranch – Main House
Khaldon Seters
We had barely sat down when Sheridan ran into the dining room. “Quick, quick—it’s terrible! You’ve got to see this. They’re calling it the Mega City Atrocities!”
One by one, we funneled into the living room and watched the horrific pictures of major cities all over the world up in blazes. The news was reporting power substations had been blown up, leaving millions without electricity, water, and communications.
The news ticker scrolled across the bottom of CCNN listing the cities currently cut off or under siege from fire: Beijing, Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York City, London, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, Moscow, Mumbai, Cairo, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Manila, Delhi, Seoul, and Jakarta.
We watched clips of film footage from news stations’ helicopters of the rioting, looting, and utter panic of the black-outs.
“This is not good. Not good at all,” Charlie muttered.
Cheyenne turned to Harris and Briggs and asked, “Don’t we have redundant backup servers located in New York, London, and Beijing?” Her fists clenched and relaxed as she paced. I reached out to help calm her down, but I knew how important it was to her, to all of us, to keep ExsanguiNation online.
Sheridan cursed under her breath, “Dammit, I bet we’re down. We need to log in and learn what grids are offline. Our game could be a news source of the communication to help people if they’re able to access generators and wireless Internet.”
I watched as Abbey counted on her fingers. “Those cities alone total up to over a hundred million people without power. Do you have any idea what this could snowball into here in the United States?”
Mason pumped his arm in the air. “Oh, hell yeah—I do! We get to blow us up some terrorists!”
Charlie reached for a shotgun behind the kitchen door. “All right—let’s keep our heads on straight. First thing we need to do is fuel up every vehicle and a few of the fifty-five gallon barrels.”
Kiernan said, “There’s no telling just how long it’ll take to get those fires under control, especially if any of those substations are located near refineries. Those cities could be without power for a long time.”
The anchorwoman broke the chatter among us. “This just in: We’re getting reports that Houston, Vancouver, and Phoenix are now without any power. Electrical substations are continuing to explode in metropolitan areas. Citizens are encouraged to lock down and remain calm. Firefighters are evacuating areas of the city where the fires are uncontained. Officials are working to redirect power from neighboring cities.”
“Vancouver?” Abbey questioned, her brown eyes large with pani
c. “That means they might hit Seattle next, or even Billings. We aren’t that far from there.”
“Blimey, what a balls ache.” I rubbed my head and wondered if Vhalencia and my team in Dubai were experiencing the same situation.
Khai squirmed in Sheridan’s arms, and she placed him down in his playpen. I watched as my son pushed himself into a sitting position. He reached up his arms to me and I leaned over and picked him up.
Khai is growing just as fast as he did in utero. He’s only two months old, but he’s taking on the traits of a six-month-old already.
“What happens if we lose power here?” Aunt Maisie’s normal calm, serene voice pitched up a couple notches, revealing her anxiety. “What’ll we do if we lose our freezers full of meat?”
Charlie eased a hand down on her shoulder. “It’s all right, love. Everything will be fine. I’m sure this won’t affect us.”
Aunt Maisie wasn’t believing a word of it. “Charles, I need to inventory the pantries. We should make a run into Sam’s tonight and get more bags of flour and sugar. I can’t believe this is happening.” She untied her apron and reached for a steno notebook and a pen. Briggs was on his phone and right behind her.
Harris had already pulled out his laptop and checked in on the servers for ExsanguiNation. “It looks like we have sections 5, 8, 16, 17, 39, 40, 41, 42 … oh hell, the whole Asian node is completely gone. Even with the redundancies we’ve set up, most of them route to one of these cities being affected.”
Cheyenne blew out puffed cheeks and her eyes tended to widen when she was deep in thought. “Unholy hell. Seems like the only safe place for our backup servers is somewhere the terrorists can’t blow them up. What are we going to do?”
“C’mon, Kiernan, we need you to drive another pickup so we can run into the feed store.” Mason was already back in the mudroom, pulling on his boots and coat. “We’re gonna need to make sure we have enough chick grower, layer mash, salt blocks, and a few other necessities. We’ve got just enough time to drive into town and buy these supplies before the farm store closes.”
Briggs had been on his cell phone and said, “I’ve pulled some strings and got a flight back to New Orleans in the morning. They said they can drop you off in Orlando before the flight destinations in New York. They have a flight at six-thirty. There’re only a few seats left. I’ve reserved them if we need them.”
Torchy had also been on the phone. He ended his conversation and swiped it off. “Aye, I can take you into town. I’m meeting with a supplier to get some emergency needs for the baby.”
Sheridan turned her head toward Torchy and smiled as if shocked that he was thinking of them before anyone else.
He sheepishly smiled back at her. “Listen, I need to make a few more calls and check in with my associates. I’m afraid if the shite continues to hit the fan, I dinnae if we’re prepared for this level of security. Since people are already going mental, then it makes me wonder…” Torchy mind messaged the rest of his sentence since there were humans in the room, But will the Supes go nutters, too? If this power outage continues too long, it’ll only be a matter of time before things snowball the feck out of control. I’ve got to add extra security wards with the Witches around the Super Market locations to ensure the safety of their businesses.
Torchy spoke out loud again, “Harris, are all the grids down or just the ones you listed? Are we able to use the private communication channels?”
“No, we’re at sixty percent. It doesn’t look as though Orlando has been affected, but the traffic on the grids is maxing out the capacity on the servers.” Harris ran a nervous hand through his brown curls. “Cheyenne, we should consider removing the game graphics and implement a text-based only communication until we can reroute more power. Or at the very least, get the redundancies in a place where they aren’t going to blow up.”
I patted Khai’s back while he sucked his fist. Not sure how the team was going to accept my question, but I figured now was as good a time as ever. “Can we use my satellites? The Iridium Network?”
Cheyenne, Sheridan, Briggs, and Harris turned to look at me as though a Cthulhu crawled out of my nose. A long, warm line of drool slid down my back and Khai tried biting into my shoulder.
He’s already teething?
Cheyenne seemed to ask the question on everyone’s mind. “What do you mean, your satellites?” She tilted her head waiting for me to reveal I was joking. “Do you—own the Iridium Network?” The tone of her voice revealed that she felt her question was ridiculous, yet she kinda sorta believed it could possibly be true.
I’ve always been a private man and never cared for anyone to have knowledge of my assets and holdings. However, this situation seemed necessary to trust in Cheyenne as much as trusted in Vhalencia.
I inhaled, opened my eyes wide, and smiled while massaging the back of my neck. “I reckon so. Several of my companies launched and maintain the satellites.” I shrugged, not sure of how they were going to accept this new information about me. “That’s what it was built for. It’s primarily used by Internet and cellular networks. If ExsanguiNation needs to be secured to help communicate to people, then it would easily become another network to load up into its software. We could probably have the entire grid back online before midnight.”
I was a freak show attraction as they stood there, blinking at me. I shifted Khai to my other shoulder waiting for someone to say something. Any time now, I was sure they were going to bust out laughing.
Harris finally broke the drone of the newscaster spouting more cities without power. “Hell, yeah! Let’s do this! How come you never told us you own satellites? Seriously, dude?” His voice was alive and non-stop. “What are you? One of those secret, private bankers the conspiracy theorists always say runs the world? Are you one of the Illuminati?”
I placed Khai into his playpen and noogied Harris on the head and said, “C’mon, mate—let me power up my laptop, and I’ll assign you the security protocols you’ll need to work with Sheridan to set this up.”
Sheridan slowly smiled. One I hadn’t seen in months. It was breathtaking to see her engaged in life once again.
Sheridan held her hands in the air as if it were an answer to prayer. “This’ll be fantastic. We can really make a difference for people who can get power.”
“This is perfect, Khaldon.” Cheyenne grinned ear-to-ear and hugged me around the neck. “We’ll easily set PADME to monitor the news feeds, and she can help us stay informed. We’ll know exactly what’s going on. We’ll program her to extrapolate news communications and then transmit them to us.” She pulled on her red curls when she got excited. It was great to feel the energy of everyone in action.
We had a unified purpose … again.
Cheyenne talked so fast I almost couldn’t keep up. “I can set up PADME to send messages to our smartwatches and phones. If we’re in a wi-fi area, we can receive her updates as soon as she learns them.”
“Yes, that’s perfect.” Sheridan kissed Khai on the head. “Then we won’t have to be chained to the computers for updates. We can also set it up where she automatically sends the updates to ExsanguiNation for people who can access the game.”
Everyone started talking at once as the room became a buzz of immediate needs.
Sheridan asked Maisie, “Does Uncle Charlie still have that old ham radio somewhere? I remember playing on it when I was little.”
Kiernan asked Charlie as they were walking out the door, “Do you have a generator around here? We could set it up to—” The heavy, outer winter door slammed behind them.
“Hold that thought, Sheridan.” Aunt Maisie opened the back door and hollered at her husband, “While you’re at Sam’s, will you get a few more packages of toilet paper? Here’s a list of what I need off the top of my head. We need—” Aunt Maisie’s voice cut off after the door slammed shut.
“Abbey, would you mind watching Khai for a little while?” Sheridan asked, “I need to morph out of parental unit mode and put o
n my programming hat.”
“Sure. Dad wants me to inventory the bullets, gunpowder, and reloading supplies down in the basement, but I can bring Khai’s playpen with me. I’ve never seen such an alert infant. He’s growing like a weed.”
Torchy took over the parental unit decisions and asked in a tentative voice, “Reloading supplies?”
“Of course. No self-respecting Montanan would be without ammunition and reloading supplies for when the shit hits the fan.” Abbey eyed her index finger and thumb as though it were a pistol. She narrowed her eyes and pretended to shoot at an imaginary target. Her voice was excited and alive as if this were the most exciting news to ever hit Wolf’s Creek. “We’ve been waiting for this for years. I hope there’re zombies. Then I can practice my head shots.”
Sheridan sucked in her lower lip and rubbed her chin. She and Torchy exchanged worried glances. “Yeah, umm … are you sure I should let you watch Khai? He won’t be too much distraction?”
“No worries, Cuz. I babysat all through high school. We’ll have a good time.”
Sheridan furrowed her brow with what looked like sincere concern.
“I’m sure it’ll be all right, Sher.” I handed Khai to Abbey, and they made way for the basement.
“Right. Okay, please don’t let him put anything in his mouth?” Sheridan kissed Khai’s head, but he seemed enamored with Abbey’s brunette ponytail.
“C’mon, you cutie patootie. Let’s go find out how much gunpowder we have for rifles and pistols.” She blew bubbles into his neck, and Khai squealed at her unmerciful air kisses.
* * *
“Listen, guys, I know you wanted to go to that Race Across the Sky thing tonight. I’m gonna have to take a rain check.” Harris thumbed over his shoulder back toward his laptop. “I need to check in with the local pack, and then Briggs and I are going to move the main server.” Harris punched me in the arm. “Dude, thanks again for the access pathways. This looks like it’ll be a clean upload.”
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